


Down By the Dank Tarn of Auber

by draculard



Category: The Woods Are Dark - Richard Laymon
Genre: Bonding Through Trauma, F/F, Falling In Love, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Love Triangles, Mutual Pining, Referenced cannibalism, Requited Love, Starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 20:17:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20699279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: When Robbins is injured, Neala and Sherri do some soul-searching.





	Down By the Dank Tarn of Auber

_ What if you find some mountain man? _ Sherri had asked.

And Neala had said,  _ We’ll share him. _

Now, looking at Robbins and his wounded knee as he lays unconscious on the cabin floor, Neala thinks maybe she can come up with something better. Across the room, Sherri sits by the cold remnants of the fire, digging her finger into the ashes, eyes blank. Neala remembers how Sherri spied through the cracks in the logs while she and Robbins fucked for the first time, how she thought initially that Sherri was watching because she wanted to see Robbins’s naked form, his taut and muscled body. 

She was wrong, of course. She leaves Robbins’s bedside and pads silently across the cabin to the window, glancing out at the distant Krulls — the gaunt, pale figures at the edge of the forest, waiting for their prey to come out. 

Then, hardly thinking about it, she sits next to Sherri. She pulls her knees up to her chest and stares into the ashes. Sherri’s shoulder comes to rest against her own.

“I think I love him,” Neala says. There’s a long pause while Sherri digests this. Neither of them look the other’s way.

“I know,” Sherri says. “I figured.” Her voice is matter-of-fact, unhurt. Neala leans closer to her, drawing warmth from Sherri’s skin.

She closes her eyes. She turns her head.

Her lips find Sherri’s neck.

“I love you, too,” she whispers. 

Sherri snorts. She acts like she can’t feel the kiss, but her eyes are shining, her chin trembling as she drags her fingers through the ashes. “And you don’t just  _ think _ that?” she says in a flat tone. “You know for sure?”

Neala puts her hand around Sherri’s waist, draws her closer. They’ve both lost weight over the past few days; it’s especially clear on Sherri, who’s always been the more athletic of the two. She feels almost frail; her ribs are right there beneath Neala’s hand, sticking out starkly beneath her skin.

If they run away together, if they go for help and leave Robbins here, which one of them will the Krulls eat first? Will they eat Sherri — get rid of the strong one — and save Neala so they can rape her, so she can bear their children?

She tries to imagine the future she’s always wanted. She and Sherri sharing some small apartment together; she and Sherri in a tent in the woods somewhere — a safe wood, an empty wood — lying nude atop her bed roll, smiling softly in the dim light of dawn. Her lips full, not dry, not split, not bleeding like they are now. Her eyes unshadowed and sparkling with joy.

“I know for sure,” Neala says. 

And after a while, moving quickly to hide her tears, Sherri turns and kisses Neala back.


End file.
